1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a liquid-ejecting head configured to eject a liquid from a nozzle opening. More particularly, the present invention relates to a liquid ejecting head, a liquid-ejecting apparatus, and an actuator device.
2. Related Art
An example of a piezoelectric element currently used in the art for use in, for example, liquid-ejecting heads, includes a piezoelectric layer composed of a piezoelectric material, such as a crystallized dielectric material, exhibiting the function of electromechanical transduction, which is arranged between a plurality of electrodes. One example of a liquid-ejecting head is an ink-jet recording head that includes, for example, a vibrating plate partially constituting a pressure-generating chamber which communicates with a nozzle opening configured to eject ink droplets. The ink-jet recording head ejects ink droplets from the nozzle opening by deforming the vibrating plate using the piezoelectric element, causing the ink in the pressure-generating chamber to become pressurized. One example of such an ink=jet recording head is disclosed in JP-A-2003-127366, which includes piezoelectric elements mounted on an ink-jet recording head which are produced by forming a uniform piezoelectric material layer over the entire surface of a vibrating plate by a film-formation technique and then processing the piezoelectric material layer to form a pattern corresponding to pressure-generating chambers by lithography, forming separate piezoelectric elements for each of the pressure-generating chambers.
With the current state of the art, however, even when a piezoelectric element including such a piezoelectric layer is formed on the pressure chamber, it is impossible to obtain a large amount of displacement at an adequate voltage or at a low voltage. Furthermore, these problems are not limited to liquid-ejecting heads such as ink-jet recording heads but are present in actuator devices for use in other apparatuses.